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Saturday, May 19, 2012

CNN Interview of Ioan Grillo: 49 Bodies--Just Another Crime in the Drug War?

Borderland Beat: The following
is a reporter’s perspective from Grillo, who was in Monterrey when the news
broke of the massacre.The CNN article
is different and one I found interesting..Paz Chivis

By Ashley
Fantz, CNN

On Sunday, 49
decapitated bodies were found on a major highway outside Monterrey, Mexico,
which is about 80 miles southwest of the U.S. border.

A large banner
draped over the corpses had a threatening message from one cartel to another,
in an area of Mexico where the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been fighting for
some time. "100 percent Zeta" was painted in black graffiti on a wall
at the entrance of a nearby town, indicating Mexico's paramilitary-trained
cartel had committed another atrocity on a stunningly large scale.

A day after
the massacre, banners purportedly signed by the Zetas appeared in various parts
of the area, denying they were the killers.

Four days
later, no information about the victims has been released. It's a mystery who
killed them and why.

The only
thing that's clear is that the people who live near the crime scene seem
detached, said Mexico-based journalist Ioan Grillo. He has covered the drug war
for more than a decade. That's increasingly how many Mexicans act, he said, an
understandable coping mechanism when you live in a country battling a drug war
that has killed more than 47,500 people in six years.

CNN talked
with Grillo to get his observations and impressions of what's going on. Parts
of this interview have been edited for clarity and length:

CNN: You were
in Monterrey and went to the town, Cadereyta Jimenez, near the crime scene.
Tell me about that.

Grillo: The
frightening thing about this incident is the lack of reaction from Mexican
society and Mexican authorities. You would expect that for an incident of this
scale, that the military would be all over the place. Two days afterward, in
the center of [Cadereyta], there were no soldiers I could see. There was cartel
graffiti in front of the town hall. All around the town, you see graffiti names
of CDG (Cartel del Golfo). It's blatant. And you don't see the authorities
around.

CNN: The
people in Cadereyta, what did they say to you

Grillo: The
people I talked to are saying, 'Why is this happening? It doesn't have anything
to do with Cadereyta. This has nothing to do with us,' which seems like a
rejection of responsibility, a kind of denial. Some psychologists say that
repeated exposure to trauma causes denial and apathy, a rejection of what has
happened. In Monterrey people are quite numb.

Perhaps parts
of Mexico feel that collectively. When you had the Monterrey casino fire which
killed 52 people in 2011, there was an emotional reaction to that. When 72
migrants were found slain [on a Tamaulipas farm in 2010], there was a reaction.

CNN: What
does this latest mass killing say about the drug war in the bigger picture?

Grillo: I
don't think you can say this incident is a turning point. The drug war
escalated significantly in 2008 to levels we'd not seen before, and in 2010 to
levels we'd not seen before. We've had several more years of horrific
atrocities. So this just seems like one more among so many.

CNN: What
about efforts to identify the bodies? [On Wednesday Mexican authorities said
they're asking for DNA samples to help with this.

Grillo: It
has been worryingly slow. I mean, 49 people just disappearing? Don't they have
families? Aren't there people out there missing them? There are no reports of
mass disappearances. Perhaps they were related to trafficking but maybe they
weren't.

Were they
migrants [victims of previous cartel violence]? We don't know anything about
the physicality of the victims. Did they have any tattoos that could help
answer those questions? You'd think there'd be some physical space where [the
killers] decapitated and dismembered these people. They must have left trails.

CNN:
Logistically, it's incredible to think about how 49 people were killed and then
transported out to a major highway. You said this area where the bodies were
found is considered dangerous but what specifically is it like?

Grillo: This
happened in the Plaza de Cadereyta in an industrial area of Monterrey. The
bodies were left directly on a major highway that runs toward Reynosa and the
U.S. border. The area has been under dispute between the Zetas and the Gulf
Cartel, and it's dangerous for that reason. A lot of journalists are fearful to
go to the outskirts of the area.

CNN: You went
to the crime scene, and you've been to hundreds of other crime scenes covering
the drug war. How do police secure crime scenes in Mexico, and in particular,
how does one secure a crime scene in which 49 bodies have been decapitated?

Grillo: In
many cases, Mexican authorities do not secure crime scenes well. You can get
close to the bodies in many cases.

In this case,
the military and the police secured the area and covered it. The first calls
came around 2:30 a.m. in the morning Sunday. The press in Monterrey first
became aware of it around 4 a.m. Because it's a dangerous place to go and
because it was the middle of the night, the press wanted to get five or six
vehicles to go there in a convoy because of the danger of driving into a
hostile area at night.

So by the
time the press got there, it was 5 a.m., the area was covered and the road was
blocked. Cameramen could not see the corpses or verify information about the corpses.
It took until about 9 or 10 p.m. [to process the bodies and remove them] ...The
only thing we saw was a video that seems to show the killers, which appears to
be authentic.

CNN: You're
talking about a video posted on the web that you viewed and you say appears to
be authentic. Why do you say that?

Grillo:
Because if you look at a photograph of a pile of human corpses, [you know when]
it looks real. It corresponds to this incident. If you watch the video -- some
of it is very dark -- you can see it appears to be authentic. As a journalist,
you can't [be] 100 percent or know who put it there [on the Web].

CNN: Mexican
President Felipe Calderon belongs to a party called the PAN and was elected in
2006. He declared war on the cartels and sent the military fanning out across
the country, and he fired hundreds of corrupt police officers.

Some say that
his actions fueled the violence with the cartels fighting back harder and more
creatively. In July, Mexico will hold a presidential election. Calderon cannot
run again because of term limits. The party opposite Calderon's -- the PRI --
could take power. How would the PRI in power change the drug war?

Grillo:
Unless something extraordinary happens, the PRI are overwhelmingly in front in
polls and are going to win. So far, the PRI have signaled some quite positive
signs for the drug war by having concrete goals of reducing rates of homicide,
kidnapping and extortion.

So they are
doing something other than having a broad goal of defeating the cartels and
reconquering territory. The PRI has said these are the anti-social crimes we
want to reduce. It's also possible that the PRI could have a majority in Congress.

If that
happens you could have a more powerful government that could bring together
different police forces. One huge problem in Calderon's administration is that
you had different police forces in different states fighting each other rather
than working together.

16 comments:

O ,I get it when the PRI wins the new President will inherit a New Mexico where the States will concede power to the Fed? This is pure BS, the States will fight to keep power so the State officials can stay in the Narco loop and GET PAID. Why pay the locals if they can't protect you?? All bets are that the PRI will help Chapo whip Z and cdg and chapo will police the Narco trade, but if extortion robbery and kidnapping don't stop the forget it the war continues.

Too late...the cats already outta the bag..there is no controlling or negotiating with these animals.perhaps the next Mexican government in charge should adapt to the way Malaysia handles drug traffickers.like the 3 Mexicans brothers from sinaloa who just got sentenced to death a few days ago for operating a meth lab over there.

The Mexican politicians are in denial. They think the world doesn't see their corruption and involvement. From the local municipal mayor to the Mexican president, the system is ROTTEN with no end in sight!!! Police forces and the cartels are one and the same. When you have 3 top generals accused of corruption, how much higher can you go? Pobrecito Mexico y su gente humilde y trabajadora!!

Pena Nieta just the pretty face of deceit-too stupid to make decision more important than his hair style-therefore it'll be left to the corruptos i.e. narcos. Sorry, we all know this is the truth. Mexico is doomed.

PRI sucked before and will suck worse in today's state of ultra violence. The liberal press never misses an opportunity to state that 'x' number of narco murders have occurred since President Calderon launched the war on drug cartels. Corruption is the factor that makes the situation worse. The PRI represents extreme corruption.

any chance Los Zetas clearing road for US? so many of the guns are US military and/or police issues....???? furthermore its a conduit for the meth / opium and cash to meet up and contaminate the cocaine...??? Is this possibity?

The Mexican army arrested a leader of a cell of Los Zetas, identified as one of the alleged perpetrators of the slaughter of 49 people last week in Cadereyta.

The Department of Defense said in a statement that Daniel Elizondo, nicknamed El Loco, leader of the Zetas in Cadereyta Plaza, where on Sunday 49 bodies were found in which they cut off their heads, feet and hands, was arrested as a result of an precise operation on Friday.

Elizondo is allegedly one of the main responsible for the execution of 49 people whose bodies were left on Sunday, said the text of the Department of Defense, for tomorrow they will present the detainee to the media in Mexico City.

The alleged leader of the Zetas was arrested in an operation called "Rake" by the Army Cadereyta area and its vicinity after the discovery of 49 bodies, one of the bloodiest massacres attributed to drug trafficking in Mexico.

Since yesterday, sources from the Office of Nuevo Leon had indicated the likelihood that Elizondo had been arrested by the army.

Nothing good could come from Peña Miento and the PRI. Look at his legacy as governor of the state of Mexico. He shopped with millions of dollars at a store for the megarich where he got his commemorative "clock". If he wins Mexico could fall into another 70 years of total corruption and a totalitarian regime (remember el "dedazo").Despierta Mexico!